China

2012

Authorities blocked reporting of unrest occurring around the world, from Inner Mongolia to the Occupy movement. More than half of the 27 journalists imprisoned on December 1 were from Tibet and Xinjiang, reflecting crackdowns after earlier unrest in minority regions. After online calls for Arab Spring-style demonstrations, dubbed the Jasmine revolution, CPJ documented the worst harassment of foreign journalists since the 2008 Olympics, including beatings and threats. Police detained dissidents--including outspoken artist Ai Weiwei--and writers they feared could galvanize protests, often without due process, and kept them under surveillance after release. Draft revisions to the criminal code would allow alleged antistate activists to be held in secret locations from 2012. Officials obstructed reporting on public health and food safety issues, among other investigations. President Hu Jintao’s U.S. visit and two bilateral dialogues, one on human rights, made little headway on press freedom, but domestic activists successfully challenged censorship using digital tools, especially microblogs.

New York, February
16, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by a series of
violent attacks on international journalists that appear aimed at suppressing
coverage of land-related protests in Panhe, in eastern China's Zhejiang
province.

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President Obama has promised to raise issues of human rights
when he and his administration meet with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping in
the next day. After that, Xi, billed as China's next leader, is expected to
make some speeches, visit a few factories, stop at the Pentagon, sign some
contracts that will strengthen economic ties between the two countries, and then
head home.

Last
week, Twitter provoked a fierce debate online when it announced a new capability--and related
policy--to hide tweets on a country-specific basis. By building this feature
into its website's basic code, Twitter said it hoped to offer a more tailored
response to legal demands to remove tweets globally. The company will inform
users if any tweet they see has been obscured, and provide a record of all
demands to remove content with the U.S.-based site chillingeffects.org.

That's one of the main messages of Rebecca MacKinnon's new
book, Consent of the Networked,
which had its New York
launch at the offices of the New America Foundation last night. In a
conversation with CNN managing editor Mark Whitaker, MacKinnon, a CPJ board member, said
it's up to concerned citizens, governments, and corporations to make decisions
about how the Internet is used. She contrasted the Twitter-powered revolt in
Egypt last year with the "networked authoritarianism" of China, where
corporations are collaborators in a system designed to preserve Communist Party
rule.